THE 


OLD    NEW    WORLD 


AN  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  EXPLORATIONS  OF  THE  HEMENWAY  SOUTH 
WESTERN  ARCHJ30LOGICAL  EXPEDITION  IN  1887-88,  UNDER  THE 
DIRECTION  OF  FRANK  HAMILTON  GUSHING 


BY 
SYLVESTER/BAXTER 


AUTHOR  OF  "THE  FATHER  OF  THE  PUEBLOS"  IN  HARPER'S  MAGAZINE  FOR   JUNE 

1882,  AND  "AN  ABORIGINAL  PILGRIMAGE"  IN  THE  CENTURY  MAGAZINE 

FOR  AUGUST,  1882 


r 


l 


Reprinted  from  the  Boston  Herald  of  April  15,  1888 


PRINTED  AT  THE  SALEM  PRESS 

SALEM  MASS 

1888 


THE 


OLD    NEW    WORLD 


AN  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  EXPLORATIONS  OF  THE  HEMENWAY  SOUTH 
WESTERN  ARCHAEOLOGICAL  EXPEDITION  IN  1887-88,  UNDER  THE 
DIRECTION  OF  FRANK  HAMILTON  CUSIIING 


BY 
SYLVESTER  BAXTER 

AUTHOR  OF  "THE  FATHER  OF  THE  PUEBLOS"  IN  HARPER'S  MAGAZINE  FOR   JUNE 

1882,  AND  "AN  ABORIGINAL  PILGRIMAGE"  IN  THE  CENTURY  MAGAZINE 

FOR  AUGUST,  1882 


Iteprint ed  from  the  Boston  Herald  of  April  15,  1888 


PRINTED  AT  THE  SALEM  PRESS 
SALEM  MASS 

1888 


PREFACE. 

This  account  of  the  Hcmenway  Southwestern  Archaeological 
Expedition  in  the  Salado  and  Gila  valleys  in  Arizona  is  the  re 
sult  of  observations  made  by  the  writer  during  three  months 
spent  with  the  expedition  in  the  early  part  of  the  year.  It  was 
originally  printed  in  the  Boston  Herald  of  April  15,  1888,  and 
is  reproduced  in  this  form  in  response  to  various  requests.  With 
in  this  compass  it  was,  of  course,  impossible  to  give  more  than 
a  synopsis  of  what  has  been  accomplished.  Various  important 
features  have  here  been  simply  mentioned  which  will  demand 
treatment  in  detail  for  the  satisfaction  of  earnest  students. 
These  requirements  will  be  fully  met  in  the  forthcoming  report 
by  Mr.  Gushing,  who  also  intends  to  treat  separately  certain  in 
teresting  aspects  of  his  discoveries.  Meanwhile  the  writer  hopes 
that  these  indications  of  what  has  been  done  in  little  more  than 
a  year's  research  may  contribute  somewhat  towards  awakening 
a  sense  of  the  importance  of  the  vast  mines  of  treasure  relating 
to  the  primitive  conditions  of  mankind  and  the  early  cultures 
of  the  race — so  essentkil  to  an  understanding  of  what  man  is 
and  guidance  to  a  knowledge  of  what  he  may  become  —  await 
ing  the  attention  of  serious  investigators  in  our  Western  World. 

SYLVESTER  BAXTER, 

Secretary  of  the  JTemenway  Southwestern 
Archaeological  Expedition. 

LEDGEWOOD  TERRACE, 

MALDEN,  MASSACHUSETTS. 
July  18,  1888. 

(iii) 


EXAMPLES  OF  DECORATED  POTTERY  EXCAVATED  AT  Los  MUERTOS. 

THE  traveller  enters  the  valley  of  the  Rio  Salado  sur 
rounded  by  wide  reaches  of  sage-brush  and  grease  wood, 
interspersed  with  thickets  of  mesquite.  A  dreary,  un 
promising  spectacle !  he  thinks,  and  the  bare,  tawny 
ground  beneath  the  bushes  has  all  the  unfertile  aspect  of  the 
traditional  desert,  to  eastern  eyes.  A  moment  more,  and 
behold  a  transformation  as  sudden  and  as  magical  to  the  as 
tonished  vision  as  was  ever  worked  by  change  of  scene  on 
theatre  stage  !  The  desert  has  vanished,  and  smooth  fields 
expand  with  the  floor  like  evenness  of  a  Kansas  prairie  as 
far  as  the  eye  can  see  toward  the  distant  bases  of  the 
surrounding  mountains.  Under  the  calm  blue  of  the  Ar 
izona  midwinter  sky  the  young  grain  spreads  away  in 
broad  acres  of  tender  green ;  sleek  kine  are  browsing 
contentedly  in  rich  alfalfa  pastures,  and  long,  straight 
lines  of  alamos  and  Lombardy  poplars  intersect  the  fields 
in  pleasant  perspectives.  It  is  a  picture  of  peace  and 
plenty. 

(1) 


2  THE    OLD    NEW    WORLD. 

This  magic  has  been  wrought  by  the  touch  of  the  life- 
bringing  water,  which  sparkles  on  all  sides  in  the  tree- 
bordered  canals  that  tap  the  abundant  river  and  spread 
their  contents  over  the  land  in  rapid  streams.  And  still 
the  change  goes  on.  Wherever  the  water  can  kiss  the 
land,  there  the  soil  stirs  with  new  life  and  clothes  itself 
with  a  beauty  that  appeals  to  all  eyes  because  it  is  the 
garb  of  bounteonsness.  Daily  the  rich  fields  widen  and 
the  desert  shrinks ;  at  night  the  burning  brush  on  the 
clearings  dots  the  horizon  with  its  flames  like  the  lamp- 
lines  of  a  city's  environs.  For  every  acre  now  yielding 
fat  crops,  a  score  will  soon  be  under  cultivation,  and  the 
river's  capacity  for  irrigation  is  still  beyond  estimate. 

Yet  the  valley  was  not  always  a  desert.  Centuries  ago 
it  was  fair,  with  a  fertility  like  unto  that  which  is  again 
overspreading  it  after  a  long  fallowness.  So  the  two  chief 
towns  of  the  region  are  not  unfittingly  named.  Phoenix 
justifies  its  designation  with  the  fact  that  all  around  it, 
out  of  the  ashes  of  a  long  dead  civilization,  our  mightier 
modern  culture  is  arising  and  founding  one  of  its  fair 
est  abiding  places;  while  the  beautiful  fields  amid  which 
Tempe  sits,  carpeting  the  feet  of  ruddy  and  purplish 
mountain  walls  that  rise  in  slopes  of  bare  rock  and  craggy 
peaks,  make  a  scene  not  unlike  the  typical  landscape  of 
ancient  Hellas,  whose  fair  and  famous  vale  has  a  namesake 
here.  Then,  too,  the  fervor  of  the  summer  is  very  en 
couraging  to  a  classic  paucity  of  attire  ! 

The  investigations  of  the  remains  of  the  ancient  civili 
zation  that  peopled  the  valley  plains,  mountain  gorges  and 
mesa  tops  of  this  vast  desert  region  of  our  national  do 
main  is  the  object  of  the  Hemenway  Southwestern  Archae 
ological  Expedition,  of  which  considerable  has  been  heard 
of  late.  The  expedition  has  been  in  the  field  but  a  little 
over  a  year,  and  the  results  already  reached  indicate  how 


THE    OLD    NEW    WORLD.  6 

deeply  indebted  the  scientific  world  will  be  to  the  wise 
munificence  of  the  Boston  lady  who  instituted  it.  Mrs. 
Mary  Hemenway,  perceiving  that  the  present  unrivalled 
opportunities  for  the  study  of  the  aboriginal  cultures  of 
America  would  soon  be  lost  forever  through  the  destruc 
tion  of  their  monuments  and  the  absorption  of  their  sur 
viving  representatives  under  the  waves  of  our  modern  civ 
ilization  advancing  over  regions  that,  until  recently,  have 
been  deemed  uninhabitable,  and  recognizing  in  the  person 
of  Mr.  Frank  Hamilton  Gushing  one  rarely  qualified  for 
the  pursuit  of  such  investigations,  quietly  established  this 
expedition  late  in  the  year  1886,  and  its  operations  in  the 
field  were  be^un  in  the  second  month  of  1887.  So  rich 

O 

did  this  region  prove  in  its  opportunities  for  systematic 
excavation  that  Mr.  Gushing,  alive  to  the  scientific  value 
of  a  collection  that  should  be  thoroughly  representative 
of  a  typical  locality,  has  confined  himself,  throughout  the 
first  year,  chiefly  within  a  radius  of  a  few  miles  of  this 
sjx)t._  Through  the  knowledge  thus  gained  he  will  be 
able  to  work  up  more  rapidly,  and  with  a  more  complete 
understanding,  the  other  regions  comprised  in  his  propc  sed 
undertaking. 

II. 

The  Hemenway  Southwestern  Archaeological  Expedition 
is  probably  the  most  thoroughly  equipped  undertaking  of 
the  kind  yet  instituted,  and  as  such  it  will  probably  mark 
a  new  era  in  ethnological  science ;  for,  as  Mr.  Gushing 
says,  archaeology  is  simply  ethnology  carried  back  into 
prehistoric  times.  This  unprecedentedly  thorough  equip 
ment  of  the  Hemenway  expedition  is  not  by  virtue  of  the 
outlay  involved,  for  other  archaeological  enterprises  of  a 
far  more  expensive  character  have  been  undertaken.  It 
lies  in  its  well  considered  and  comprehensive  scope  in  the 


4  THE    OLD    NEW    WORLD. 

coordinate  pursuit  of  several  branches  of  research,  each 
helping  the  others  in  its  progress,  and  contributing  to  a 
result  that  promises  to  be  the  most  complete  working  up 
of  any  region,  and  the  race  of  man  that  has  chiefly  occu 
pied  that  region,  yet  known  to  modern  science.  There 
fore,  it  is  not  too  much  to  expect  that  in  this  work,  when 
well  advanced  toward  its  consummation,  we  shall  have  a 
new  point  of  departure  for  the  guidance  of  all  future  re 
searches  of  ethnology — the  study  of  mankind  :  the  young 
est,  the  least  formulated,  and  yet  the  greatest  of  all  the 
sciences,  including  them  all,  with  the  student  of  them  all 
as  its  subject. 

The  branches  of  research  involved  in  the  scope  of  the 
Hemenway  expedition  are  mainly  four : 

Ethnological ;  or  the  study  of  man  as  a  race,  including 
all  features  constituting  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  that 
race,  whether  physical  or  psychical,  and  therefore  broadly 
comprising  all  circumstances  affecting  the  race. 

Anthropological ;  or  the  study  of  the  characteristics  of 
man,  considered  as  an  individual,  and  naturally  including 
in  its  line  of  research  those  elements  which  have  caused 
those  characteristics. 

Historical ;  comprising  a  careful  study  of  all  that  has 
been  recorded,  so  far  as  may  be  ascertained,  concerning 
the  region  to  be  investigated,  its  primitive  occupants  and 
other  races  with  which  they  have  come  in  contact ;  the 
study  including  not  only  documentary  records,  but  that 
most  important  factor  in  the  historical  investigation  of  a 
primitive  race,  the  guiding  thread  furnished  by  its  oral 
traditions,  which  have  repeatedly  proven,  under  their  cor 
rect  interpretation  by  those  competent  to  understand  them, 
infallible  witnesses  to  the  past. 

Archaeological;  or1  the  study  of  the  prehistoric  remains 
of  a  race  as  instrumentalities  for  the  understanding  of  what 


THE    OLD   NEW   WORLD.  0 

that  past  has  been.  But  these,  it  is  assumed  by  the  ex 
pedition,  can  only  be  properly  understood  when  viewed 
in  the  light  obtained  by  present  knowledge  ;  when  regarded 
in  that  light  a  fragment  of  pottery  may  often  tell  a  tale 
more  plainly  and  eloquently  than  a  written  record. 

Beside  these  four  nuiin  lines  of  research  there  runs  the 
study  of  the  topography  and  physical  geography  of  a  re 
gion — the  characteristics  of  soil  and  climate  and  its  natural 
history — for  these  features  of  environment  are  potent  in 
affecting,  and  even  sometimes  originating,  the  racial  and 
national  traits  of  a  people.  All  of  these  lines  of  research 
will  be  found  here  and  there  running  into  each  other,  one 
requiring  the  practice  of  the  methods  of  the  other  for  the 
determining  of  questions  that  may  arise;  and,  embracing 
them  all,  stands  ethnology,  the  science  of  mankind,  mak 
ing  its  demands  when  need  be  upon  all  the  vast  store  of 
human  knowledge  accumulated  in  the  structure  reared  by 
modern  science. 

Other  archaeological  enterprises  have  been,  in  the  main, 
exploring  or  collecting  undertakings ;  the  Hemenway  ex 
pedition  is  archaeological  in  the  truest  sense,  its  object  be 
ing  not  only  the  careful  collection  of  material  for  the  study 
of  the  past  of  the  race  whose  remains  compose  that  mate 
rial,  but  the  study  and  mental  reconstruction  of  the  past 
as  necessary  accompaniments  of  the  collection  and  explora 
tion  of  that  material  during  the  very  progress  of  the  work. 

III. 

The  scientific  corps  of  the  Hemenway  expedition  is  or 
ganized  with  reference  to  the  most  efficient  prosecution 
of  these  several  lines  of  inquiry.  It  is  nearly  seven  years 
since  the  present  writer  had  the  privilege  of  meeting  Mr. 
Gushing  at  Zuiii  and  making  public,  through  the  columns 
of  the  Herald,  the  first  account  of  his  remarkable  iuves- 


6  THE    OLD   NEW    WORLD. 

tigations  in  that  isolated  pueblo  of  New  Mexico.  Mr. 
Cushing's  discovery  of  the  esoteric  societies  existing  among 
that  people,  together  with  the  remarkable  fund  of  informa 
tion  secured  by  his  intimate  association  with  them,  proved 
a  revelation  to  the  scientific  world,  throwing  a  flood  of 
light  on  the  nature  of  primitive  man,  and  giving  a  new 
impetus  to  ethnological  research.  His  course  was  the  first 
example  of  how  ethnological  studies  should  really  be  pur 
sued  ;  it  showed  the  necessity  of  conducting  such  investi 
gations  from  the  inside,  and  the  absolute  futility  of  external 
observation  in  all  work  of  the  kind.  The  object  of  Mr. 
Cushing's  researches  among  the  Zuiiis,  adventurous  and 
attended  by  exceptional  hardships  as  they  were,  has  in 
some  quarters  been  somewhat  misapprehended  as  to  its 
bearings.  At  the  time  of  my  visit,  however,  I  fully  un 
derstood  that  his  purpose  was  not  merely  to  study  the 
Zuiiis  as  a  peculiar  and  mysterious  people;  his  chief  de 
sign  was  to  study  primitive  man  through  the  Zunis,  the 
thorough  knowledge  of  a  typical  stock  affording  a  firm 
basis  for  obtaining  a  knowledge  of  other  stocks  or  races 

o  o 

through  the  application  of  the  principles  thereby  obtained. 
It  happened  that  his  choice  of  an  example  was  exception 
ally  fortunate,  for  the  Zunis  turned  out  to  be  representa 
tive  of  the  most  complete  survival  of  the  ancient  sedentary 
culture  of  the  southwest,  and  as  such  so  regarded  by  a 
majority  of  the  other  existing  Pueblo  races.  Their  des 
ignation  as  the  "Father  of  the  Pueblos,"  which  I  employed 
when  first  writing  of  them,  is  therefore  appropriate  as  a 
substantially  literal  version  of  their  appellation  by  connate 
peoples. 

The  fault  of  much  of  the  best  of  the  ethnological  re 
search  previous  to  Mr.  Cushing's  has  been  that  it  has  been 
conducted  upon  purely  materialistic  lines,  and  the  assump 
tions  thus  made  have  necessarily  led  to  false,  or,  at  best, 


THE    OLD    NEW    WORLD.  7 

inadequate,  conclusions.  Mr.  Gushing,  however,  through 
a  thorough  acquisition  of  the  language  of  the  Zunis,  and 
identification  with  their  modes  of  life  and  even  thought, 
was  enabled  to  look  at  their  institutions  from  the  stand 
point  of  primitive  man  himself,  which,  in  its  conception 
of  all  appearances  as  realities,  is  precisely  the  reverse  of 
our  modern  standpoint.  Without  this  thorough  knowl 
edge  thus  gained  by  his  Zufii  studies,  his  line  of  important 
archaeological  discoveries  made  during  this  first  year  of  the 
Hemenway  expedition  would  have  been  impossible.  These 
discoveries  have  been  the  result  of  the  application  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  institutions  of  a  living,  but  primitive, 
sedentary  people,  to  the  interpretation  of  the  remains  of 
an  ancient  race  of  a  similar  character. 

The  anthropological  work  of  the  expedition  is  in  charge 
of  Herman  F.  C.  ten  Kate,  M.D.  and  Ph.D.,  a  native  of 
Holland,  and  the  son  of  the  distinguished  artist  of  that 
name  resident  in  the  Hague.  Dr.  ten  Kate  is  a  graduate 
of  the  University  of  Leyden,  and  has  a  thorough  medical 
training,  which,  of  course,  is  of  the  greatest  advantage  in 
his  line  of  research.  Though  a  young  man  still  in  his 
twenties,  he  has  attained  eminence  in  his  branch  of  science 
through  his  reports  upon  investigations  conducted  in  the 
course  of  extensive  journey  ings  in  various  quarters  of 
the  world,  from  Algeria  to  Lapland,  from  the  East  to  the 
West  Indies,  and  among  numerous  Indian  tribes  of  the 
United  States,  Mexico  and  British  America.  In  some  of 
these  travels  he  has  been  the  companion  of  Prince  Lucieu 
Bonaparte,  who  is  an  earnest  and  munificent  ethnological 
student.  Dr.  ten  Kate  has  acquired  a  store  of  highly  im 
portant  material  through  a  line  of  anthropometrical  inves 
tigations  pursued  largely  among  primitive  races,  making 
a  series  of  accurate  measurements  and  other  records,  in 
the  course  of  which  various  specially  designed  instruments 


8  THE    OLD   NEW    WORLD. 

of  delicate  adjustment  are  used.  These  data,  which  in 
clude  also  close  observation  as  to  the  color  of  eyes,  hair  and 
skin,  quality  of  hair,  form  of  face  and  features,  etc.,  when 
collected  in  large  quantity,  form  valuable  material  for  the 
classification  of  different  varieties  of  the  human  species, 
and  the  distribution  of  those  varieties  and  their  modifica 
tions  through  the  intermingling  process  which  has  been  go 
ing  on  for  ages  in  nations  and  races.  These  researches, 
together  with  others,  Dr.  ten  Kate  will  pursue  amid  the 
various  Indian  tribes  now  living  in  the  territory  covered 
by  the  scope  of  the  expedition.  The  anthropological  work 
enters  the  archaeological  field  in  the  investigation  of  the 
important  series  of  skeletons  exhumed  in  the  investiga 
tions,  and  the  correlation  of  the  results  of  this  with  those 
of  the  work  just  described. 

In  this  work  Dr.  ten  Kate  has  the  cooperation  of  Dr. 
J.  L.  Wort  man,  the  comparative  anatomist  of  the  Army 
Medical  Museum  at  Washington,  who,  in  view  of  the  great 
importanceof  these  osteological  remains  of  an  ancient  Amer 
ican  race,  has  been  specially  detailed  for  the  purpose  by 
the  curator  of  the  museum,  Surgeon  J.  S.  Billings,  U.  S.  A. 
Dr.  Wortman,  who,  like  Mr.  Gushing  and  Dr.  ten  Kate, 
is  also  a  young  man,  is  one  of  the  foremost  of  comparative 
anatomists  and  osteologists  in  the  country ;  for  several 
years  he  was  the  assistant  of  Prof.  Edward  Cope,  the  emi 
nent  palaeontologist,  and  he  has  achieved  a  high  reputation 
in  his  line  of  science  by  reason  of  both  his  original  research 
and  the  nicety  of  his  laboratory  work. 

The  historical  work  is  in  charge  of  Mr.  AdolphF.  Bande- 
lier,  a  gentleman  who  is  preeminently  fitted  for  the  task. 
Mr.  Bandelier  is  one  of  the  foremost  of  American  ethnolo 
gists,  and  the  thoroughness  of  his  work  in  the  historical 
field  has  given  him  a  high  reputation  in  Europe,  as  well  as 
in  this  country.  He  unites  with  his  deep  erudition  a  bril- 


THE    OLD   NEW   WORLD.  9 

liant  capacity  for  the  marshalling  of  facts  in  that  unity  of 
aspect  which  makes  the  true  historian.  Probably  no  other 
man  living  is  so  thoroughly  conversant  with  the  materials 
of  Spanish- American  history  ;  and  his  work  now  in  hand 
on  the  documentary  aboriginal  history  of  Zuni,  and,  fol 
lowing  it,  of  the  Southwest  generally,  can  hardly  fail,  when 
completed,  to  place  him  in  the  ranks  of  great  American 
historians.  His  work  for  the  expedition,  in  conjunction 
with  his  preparation  of  a  history  of  the  Church  in  New 
Mexico,  presented  to  the  Pope  by  the  archbishop  of  Santa 
F6,  on  the  occasion  of  the  recent  jubilee  of  His  Holiness, 
gave  him  access  to  a  vast  amount  of  valuable  material  in 
the  archives  at  Mexico,  hitherto  inaccessible,  and  the  notes 
thus  obtained,  bound  and  arranged  in  several  volumes  with 
the  careful  exactness  of  the  true  historian's  method,  form 
a  most  interesting  feature  of  his  choice  historical  library  at 
Santa  Fe,  where  his  home  has  been  for  several  years.  Mr. 
Bandelier  was  one  of  the  first  to  recognize,  after  due  ex 
amination,  the  great  scientific  importance  of  Mr.  Gushing' s 
work  at  Zuni,  and  it  is  an  interesting  fact  that  the  work 
of  each  —  the  one  upon  purely  ethnological,  and  the  other 
upon  purely  historical,  lines — has,  when  they  have  entered 
upon  the  same  field,  tallied  with  and  corroborated  that  of 
the  other.  Both  history  and  archaeology  thus  stand  in 
similar  relations  to  ethnological  research ;  the  latter  goes 
back  and  clears  up  the  mysteries  of  the  former,  and  they 
in  turn,  help  to  make  the  present  intelligible. 

Another  important  member  of  the  expedition  is  Mr. 
Charles  A.  Garlick,  until  recently  of  the  United  States 
Geological  Survey.  Mr.  Garlick,  Avho  is  a  brother-in-law 
of  Major  J.  W.  Powell,  the  director  of  the  United  States 
Bureau  of  Ethnology,  and  of  Prof.  A.  H.  Thompson,  who 
is  in  charge  of  the  United  States  Geological  Survey,  be 
sides  having  care  of  the  practical  affairs  of  the  expedition, 


10  THE    OLD   NEW   WORLD. 

is  its  topographical  surveyor  as  well,  and  has  made  excel 
lent  maps  of  the  ground  covered  by  the  work.  In  his  en 
gineering1  work  he  has  had  the  assistance  of  Mr.  Fred. 

O  O 

Hodge,  Mr.  Cushing's  private  secretary,  who  has  turned 
a  good  training  as  a  draughtsman  to  account  in  the  plot 
ting  of  carefully  made  plans  of  the  excavations.  Mrs. 
Gushing  and  her  sister,  Miss  Margaret  W.  Magill,  are 
also  members  of  the  party,  and  in  the  classification  and 
care  of  the  specimens  they  have  rendered  important  aid, 
while  Miss  Magill's  artistic  talent  with  pencil  and  brush 
has  been  of  invaluable  and  constant  service.  The  imme 
diate  supervision  of  the  force  of  laborers,  consisting  en 
tirely  of  well  trained  Mexicans,  is  intrusted  to  Mr.  Ramon 
Castro,  a  fine  type  of  young  Mexican  manhood,  who,  un 
der  the  guidance  of  Mr.  Gushing,  has  developed  what 
might  be  called  an  instinct  for  the  presence  of  archreolog- 
ical  remains  so  keen  that  the  faintest  traces  are  usually 
sufficient  to  reveal  to  him  the  nature  of  what  will  be  found 
beneath  the  surface. 

IV. 

Mr.  Cushing's  researches  here  constitute  the  second  great 
step  in  what  he  has  chosen  for  his  life  work.  They  have  al 
ready  enabled  him  to  disentangle  important  leading  threads 
from  the  skein  which  involves  the  mystery  of  the  nature 
and  origin  of  the  sedentary  peoples  in  the  great  American 
family  of  mankind.  Here  in  the  valley  of  the  Salado  he 
came  across  the  vestiges  of  a  group  of  ancient  cities,  akin 
in  character  to  similar  groups  whose  ruins  are  to  be  found 
by  the  score  throughout  all  the  once  fertile  valleys  of  this 
southwestern  country.  This  group,  amid  which  Gamp 
Hemenway  lies,  has  lain  forsaken  for  untold  centuries,  its 
walls  gradually  uniting  with  the  soil  of  which  they  were 
made  until  nothing  was  to  be  distinguished  but  a  low 


THE    OLD   NEW    WORLD.  11 

mound  in  the  midst  of  each  city,  ill-defined  heaps  of  earth 
at  close  intervals,  various  depressions  in  the  surface  here 
and  there,  irregular  lines  of  old  irrigating-canals,  and  the 
ground  covered  with  pottery  shards,  remains  of  stone  im 
plements,  etc.,  scattered  far  and  wide  among  the  mesquite 
forests  and  brush  thickets. 

As  shovelful  after  shovelful  of  earth  has  been  removed, 
revealing  more  fully  the  remains  of  the  life  which  animated 
the  spot  with  its  doings  and  strivings,  a  life  as  engrossing 
and  important  to  its  actors  then  as  ours  is  to  us  in  the  larger 
activities  of  to-day,  and,  perhaps,  after  all  of  just  as  much 
account  in  the  economy  of  the  world,  Mr.  Gushing  has  by 
degrees  been  enabled  to  reconstruct  that  life  of  the  dim 
past,  until  mnny  of  its  features  already  form  coherent  pict 
ures  before  our  mental  vision. 

Some  of  the  printed  accounts  of  his  investigations  have, 
doubtless,  appeared  tinged  with  sensationalism,  but  for  that 
Mr.  Gushing  cannot  be  held  responsible.  Even  in  this 
corner  of  the  world  such  operations  cannot  be  conducted 
without  attracting  attention,  especially  when  Phoenix,  the 
chief  city  of  Arizona,  is  but  a  few  miles  distant.  There  is 
a  natural  tendency  to  exaggeration  among  the  witnesses  of 
any  operations  that  are  out  of  the  usual  order  of  events, 
but  Mr.  Gushing  has  exercised  due  scientific  caution  in 
reaching  his  conclusions,  and  the  sober  facts  are  interesting 
enough  without  embellishment. 

o 

Without  his  Ztifii  experiences,  the  clear  light  which  Mr. 
Gushing  has  cast  upon  much  of  these  primitive  peoples  would 
be  impossible.  The  facts  of  the  daily  life  and  religious  in 
stitutions  of  the  Zunis,  their  keramic  and  other  industrial 
arts,  and  things  plainly  recorded  in  the  structure  of  the 
Zuni  language  and  thus  handed  down  through  the  centuries 
from  remote  antiquity  as  plainly  to  one  who  knows  the  lin 
guistic  ground  as  though  they  were  graven  in  stone  —  all 
2 


12  THE    OLD   NEW   WORLD. 

these  have  been  indispensable  means  to  the  attainment  of 
his  striking  results.  What  he  has  found  here  has  also,  in 
turn,  made  plain  to  him  the  meaning  of  various  facts  ob 
served  by  him  in  Zuni,  and  which  he  hitherto  could  not 
understand. 

V. 

Could  we  behold  this  valley  as  it  appeared  when  it  was 
peopled  by  that  ancient  race,  we  should  see  a  cluster  of 
cities  standing  upon  the  level,  or  slightly  and  evenly  slop 
ing  plain,  separated  by  distances  varying  from  a  mile  or 
two  to  five  or  six  miles.  The  intervening  spaces  would  be 
occupied  by  carefully  cultivated  fields,  bearing  crops  of 
corn,  beans  and  pumpkins.  In  the  midst  of  the  valley 
courses  the  rapid  river,  with  its  shores  marked  by  t«-dl  trees, 
undergrowth  and  cane-thickets,  just  as  to-day.  From  its 
banks  broad  irrigating-canals  meander  through  the  valley, 
adapting  themselves  to  irregularities  of  the  surface  and  not 
running  in  such  straight  lines  as  their  modern  successors. 

o  O 

The  branches  of  these  thread  the  fields  in  like  sinuosity, 
and  dispense  fertility  far  and  wide. 

When  the  fields  are  green  with  the  young  crops,  the  cities 
stand  out  in  sharp  contrast,  like  islands  of  tawny  yellow 
amid  the  verdure,  glowing  in  the  sunshine  under  the  azure, 
and  with  the  mountains  rearing  their  purple  walls  in  the 
background.  In  the  winter,  however,  they  are  like  parts 
of  the  ground  amid  which  they  stand,  and  of  which  their 
walls  are  formed.  In  the  midst  of  each  city  there  rises 
a  massive  structure  prominent  above  the  rest,  with  walls 
thick  and  fortress-like,  and  six  or  seven  stories  in  height. 
Around  this  there  stand  the  dwellings  of  the  people  in  enor 
mous  blocks,  with  flat  roofs  and  rising  in  terraces  three  or 
four  stories  in  height.  One  of  these  blocks  may  cover  acres 
of  ground.  In  each  city  we  find  another  public  building, 


THE    OLD    NEW    WORLD.  13 

a  great  oval  structure  of  one  story ;  and  again,  outside  of 
all  the  high  massive  walls  enclosing  each  block,  huts  not 
unlike  the  great  oval  structure  and  covered  with  sloping 
thatch  instead  of  flat  earthen  roofing.  Between,  around, 
and  beside  the  blocks  there  run  the  canals,  their  course 
marked  by  trees.  Whoever  has  seen  the  pueblo  of  Taos 
at  the  foot  of  the  Rocky  mountains  in  New  Mexico,  with 
its  two  blocks  of  terraced  buildings  and  the  stream  run 
ning  between  them,  may,  if  he  but  imagine  the  ovens  and 
sheds  standing  about  the  hut  described,  gain  something  of 
an  idea  of  the  aspect  of  these  dwellings;  but  one  of  these 
ancient  structures  would  contain  within  itself  many  like 
those  of  Taos.  Beside  each  block  of  dwellings  there  is  a 
reservoir  filled  with  water,  and  occasionally  there  are  two, 
the  canal  either  entering  or  running  through.  Near  the 
reservoir  is  aheap  of  earth,  and  each  building  has  close  by 
a  large  circular  pit.  Far  oif,  on  the  borders  of  the  fields, 
stand  hamlets  of  thatched  huts,  with  sides  of  wattled  cane, 
precisely  like  those  clustered  nearer  the  central  buildings. 
Such  is  the  general  aspect  of  the  scene,  but  in  two  or  three 
of  the  cities,  instead  of  one  great  central  structure,  there 
stand  several  smaller  edifices  of  similar  aspect  in  various 
parts  of  the  town. 

The  population  is  of  a  race  like  that  of  the  Pueblo  In 
dians  of  to-day,  but  theirs  is  a  stone-age  civilization  and 
more  highly  organized  than  that  of  its  surviving  remnants. 
The  people  are  industrious,  peaceable  and  contented,  but 
they  have  their  full  share  of  the  pain  and  suffering  which 
must  have  been  the  lot  of  mankind  in  all  ages.  The  men 
till  the  fields  and  engage  in  the  chase ;  the  women  attend 
to  the  household  duties,  cook  the  food  and  grind  the  maize 
into  fine  meal  in  the  stone  handmills  or  metates,  and  they 
make  and  bake  the  pottery,  decorating  it  with  the  designs 
which  have  been  handed  down  from  a  still  remote  past, 


14  THE    OLD    NEW    WORLD. 

and  which  are  yet  faithfully  repeated  by  the  Zunis  and  to 
less  extent  by  some  of  the  other  pueblos  of  to-day. 

There  is  a  deal  of  mechanical  activity  always  going  on 
among  the  men,  for  the  fashioning  of  the  various  imple 
ments  of  stone  and  bone,  for  instance,  the  grinding  or  rub 
bing  down  of  the  stone  axes  to  their  symmetrical  shapes 
and  true  lines  necessitates  an  amount  of  patient,  pains 
taking  labor  that  would  be  the  despair  of  one  of  our  nine 
teenth-century  workmen.  But  the  work  done  with  these 
clumsy  tools  is  much  more  expeditious  than  would  seem 
to  be  possible.  With  these  tools  we  see  them  hewing 
trees  and  chopping  and  working  the  wood  into  the  various 
materials  used  in  their  house-construction,  shaping  it  into 
bows  and  arrows  and  making  various  utensils,  or  breaking 
it  into  fuel ;  we  see  them  chipping  stones  into  nicely 
formed  arrowheads,  spearheads  and  knives  ;  we  watch  them 
making  their  highly  prized  articles  of  adornment  from  sea- 
shells  and  turquoises  and  other  stones  precious  in  their 
eyes.  They  have,  in  all  probability,  by  the  evidence  fur 
nished  by  petrographs  and  tradition,  as  well  as  analogy, 
driven  in  long  lines,  single  file,  strange  "little  bestes  of 
burthen"  which,  perhaps,  have  carried  water  and  these 
same  precious  stores  of  shell  and  stone  material  over  long 
journeys  ;  and  then,  as  now,  the  dog  is  man's  faithful  com 
panion.  Men  are  coming  and  going,  bearing  heavy  bur 
dens  on  their  backs —  deer  and  antelopes  from  the  chase, 
grain  from  the  fields,  or  staggering  beneath  the  weight  of 
heavy  stones  from  the  river  bed,  or  rough  blocks  of  hard : 
porous  lava,  to  be  shaped  into  the  indispensable  metates,  for 
generally  these  things  are  too  heavy  for  their  "little  bestes." 
Occasionally  a  man  comes  in  from  a  long  journey  to  the 
distant  gulf  of  California,  or  the  shores  of  the  Pacific  in 
California,  bringing  the  equivalent  of  several  small  for 
tunes  in  the  shape  of  loads  of  the  most  coveted  varieties 


THE    OLD   NEW    WORLD.  15 

of  shell,  and  which  Mr.  Gushing  finds  to  be  worked  into 
bracelets,  ear-rings,  beads ;  small  shells  for  use  as  strings 
of  tinkling  bells,  and  large  ones  for  use  in  sacred  cere 
monials. 

In  their  undertakings  which  concern  the  people  as  a 
whole,  they  are  cooperative,  and  the  individual,  under 
such  circumstances,  subordinates  himself  completely  to  the 
community,  which  works  as  a  unit,  and  thus  constructs 
the  extensive  irrigating  systems,  the  public  edifices,  etc., 
which  even  to  us  seem  gigantic  in  their  extent  and  concep 
tion,  making  us  marvel  that  they  could  have  been  carried 
out  with  such  crude  implements.  Without  this  unity  of 
effort  they  would,  indeed,  have  been  impossible.  One 
feature  of  their  cooperative  work  is  the  public  ovens  be 
longing  to  each  block  of  buildings,  in  the  shape  of  the 
great  pits  above  alluded  to.  Each  block  was  occupied  by 
a  distinct  clan,  and  in  these  ovens  or  baking-pits,  enor 
mous  quantities  of  food  are  cooked,  to  be  shared,  per 
haps,  by  the  entire  clan.  The  method  of  cooking  is  much 
like  that  of  the  New  England  clambake,  which  originated, 
it  will  be  remembered,  with  the  Indians  of  our  coast: 
great  fires  are  burned  in  the  pits  for  several  hours  and 
then  smothered  in  a  shaft  at  the  bottom  ;  green  branches 
are  then  thrown  in  to  make  a  lining  of  considerable  depth, 
on  these  are  placed  large  amounts  of  green  corn  and  other 
vegetables,  together  with  meat.  More  branches  are  then 
piled  on,  and  the  whole  finally  covered  with  earth  and 
packed  hard.  On  this  a  great  fire  is  built,  around  which 
at  night  a  semi-sacred  dance  goes  on.  After  twenty-four 
hours  or  so  the  pit  is  opened  and  everything  is  found  to 
be  deliciously  cooked.  So  intense  is  the  heat  of  the  fires 
in  these  baking-pits,  and  so  much  are  they  used,  that  the 
clay  with  which  they  are  lined  has  been  melted  through 
out  to  a  vitreous  slag. 


16  THE    OLD   NEW   WORLD. 

The  great  central  edifices  are  the  temples,  the  dwellings 
of  the  hierarchy  of  hereditary  priests,  containing  the  store 
rooms  for  the  share  of  the  grain  and  other  crops  which  is 
theirs  on  the  tithing  principle,  contributed  by  the  entire 
community,  as  well  as  rooms  for  sacred  and  public  pur 
poses.  In  time  of  war  the  building  incidentally  becomes 
the  citadel  of  the  place,  and  with  its  massive  walls  it  is 
well  nigh  impregnable.  As  the  dwelling  of  the  priestly 
rulers  it  might  perhaps  be  called  the  palace  or  temple ;  at 
all  events,  it  may  correctly  be  termed  the  germ  of  the  pal 
ace  and  castle  that  came  into  being  when  monarchial  in 
stitutions  had  fully  developed  out  of  a  similar  stage  of 
culture  in  other  parts  of  the  world. 

With  the  people  whose  past  we  are  beholding,  religion 
is  the  main  thing  of  life,  and  every  act,  every  movement, 
however  insignificant  or  however  slight,  has  its  religious 
aspect  and  significance.  So  thoroughly  are  they  pervaded 
by  their  devotional  attitude  that  it  requires  no  exercise  of 
authority  on  the  part  of  their  priesthood  to  secure  submis 
sion  ;  their  obedience  is  that  of  children  to  their  parents, 
filial  and  reverential,  and  the  voluntary  outcome  of  their 
mythico-social  life.  They  have  their  esoteric  societies  for 
the  guarding  of  what  they  deem  secrets  of  nature,  meth 
ods  of  treating  disease  and  fighting  sorcery.  These  soci 
eties  have  their  lodge  rooms  probably  in  each  block  of 
buildings,  and  in  the  great  oval  building  we  have  seen  is 
their  meeting-place  for  more  formal  and  public  exercises  ; 
this  building  is  what  is  commonly  called  the  estufa  in 
speaking  of  the  modern  pueblo,  but  the  term,  which  means 
"stove,"  is  a  misnomer;  perhnps  sun-temple,  the  name 
which  Mr.  dishing  applies,  would  be  more  correct,  since 
it  is  the  headquarters  of  the  Priest  of  the  Sun,  the  spirit 
ual  head  of  the  people,  and  standing  apart  in  his  functions 
from  the  hierarchy,  the  "  six  Masters  of  the  House." 


THE    OLD   NEW   WORLD. 


17 


The  burial  customs  of  this  people  are  of  two  kinds  : 
the  common  people  were  cremated,  and  the  priests  and 
members  of  the  hereditary  priestly  caste  —  the  line  of  de 
scent  being  always  through  the  mother  —  and  of  the  eso 
teric  societies,  were  buried.  For,  according  to  their  belief, 
in  order  to  secure  the  complete  liberation  of  the  soul  from 
the  body  immediately  after  death,  it  is  necessary  for  the  body 
to  be  burned,  its  destruction  setting  the  soul  free  at  once, 
while  the  priests  have,  by  virtue  of  their  spiritual  powers, 


A  DOUBLE  BUUIAL;  MALE  AND  FEMALE. 

this  knowledge,  and  so  their  bodies  do  not  need  to  be 
burned.  This  knowledge  also  belongs  to  members  of  their 
caste  by  right  of  heredity,  and  sometimes  by  initiation  sanc 
tioned  by  them.  Such  persons  are,  therefore,  always 
buried  in  the  temple  or  beneath  the  floors  of  their  houses. 
The  low,  gray  earth  and  ash-mounds  which  we  have  no 
ticed  near  the  reservoirs  are  the  "pyral  mounds, "or  places 
where  the  bodies  of  the  dead  are  cremated.  After  the 
funeral  pyre,  loaded  with  precious  sacrifices,  offerings  of 
members  of  his  clan,  has  burned  out,  the  few  remaining 


18 


THE    OLD    NEW    WORLD. 


bones  of  the  dead  are  gathered  and  placed  in  a  jar  of  pot 
tery  and  buried  on  the  margin  of  the  mound.  Unless  the 
burial-jar  has  been  specially  made  or  reserved  for  the  pur 
pose,  it  is  neatly  "killed"  by  drilling  a  hole  in  its  bottom 
or  otherwise  partially  breaking  it,  thereby  allowing  its 
soul  to  escape  with  that  of  the  person  whose  remains  it 
holds.  The  personal  belongings  of  the  dead  are  also 


EXCAVATED  CEMETERY  AT  BASE  OF  PYUAL  MOUND,  SHOWING  POTTERY  CONTAINING 

CREMATED  REMAINS. 

burned  with  him,  that  their  spiritual  counterparts  may  be 
set  free  to  accompany  him  into  the  other  world.  In  the 
case  of  the  house-burials,  however,  the  vessels  containing 
food  and  drink  buried  with  the  deceased  are  not  "  killed" 
except  in  the  case  of  young  children  who  may  be  consid 
ered  too  inexperienced  to  know  how  to  exert  the  power 
necessary  to  taking  the  vessel  and  its  contents  with  them 
upon  their  journey. 


THE    OLD   NEW   WORLD. 


19 


VI. 

All  these  facts  have  been   acquired  by  Mr.   Gushing 
through  the  knowledge  gained  in  his  Zimi  experience,  en 
abling  him  to  read  the  past  in  the  light  of  what  he  there 
learned  concerning  the  nature  of  primitive  man.    His  prin 
cipal  excavations  thus  far  have  been  carried  on  in  two  of 
the  ruined  cities  of  the  valley  about  six  miles  apart,  which 
he  has  respectively  named  Los  Muertos  and  Las  Acequias,     [L 
or  the  City  of  the  Dead  and  the  City  of  the  Canals,  from 
local  features,  the  former  name  coming  from  the  large  quan 
tity  of  skeletons  and  cremated  remains  found  there.  Camp 
Hemenway  is  situated  in  the  midst  of  Los  Muertos,  which 
covers  an  area  of  something  over  two  square  miles  drawn 
out  along  the  borders  of  a  canal  or  artificial  river,  to  a 
length  of  nearly  six  miles.  According  to  the  very  conserva 
tive  estimate  made  by  Major  Powell  of  what  the  population 
of  an  ancient  ruin  in  the  Canon  de  Chelle,  in  the  north  of 
Arizona,  must  have  been,  judging  by  the  number  of  dwell 
ings,  Los  Muertos  had  at  least  13,000  inhabitants,  and  it  is 
not  improbable  that  the  number  was  greatly  in  excess  of 
that  figure.  As  has  been  stated,  Los  Muertos  is  one  of  the 
smallest  of  a  group  of  seven  cities,  and,  conceding  an  aver 
age  of  13,000  inhabitants  to  each  city,  the  population  of 
the  entire  group  would  have  been  at  least  90,000,  and  prob 
ably  very  much  larger.     There  are  various  very  strong 
reasons  aside  from  these  for  holding  that  the  population  of 
these  fertile,  universally  irrigated  valleys,  was  a  dense  one. 
One  of  these  is  the  carrying  out  of  large  constructive  works, 
a  labor  which,  with  the  crude  implements  of  a  stone  age, 
would  have  required    the  cooperation  of  large  forces  of 
men.    Most  conspicuous  of  these  are  the  extensive  systems 
of  irrigation,  with  the  great  canals  running  many  miles  in 
to  the  interior.     One  of  these  canals  in  the  Gila  valley  is 
fully  thirty-eight  miles  in  length  at  the  least  calculation, 


20  THE    OLD    NEW    WORLD. 

and  in  other  parts  of  Arizona  there  are  ancient  canals  over 
seventy  miles  long.  The  construction  of  these  canals  to 
day,  with  all  our  improved  appliances  even,  would  ben 
great  undertaking,  and  their  execution  with  simply  stone 
implements  for  excavation  and  baskets  or  litters  for  carry 
ing  the  earth  would  have  been  bevond  the  means  of  a  small 

O  " 

population.  Moreover,  a  small  population  would  have  kept 
near  the  river  and  made  but  a  short  canal.  One  of  these 
ancient  canals  has  been  partially  utilized  by  the  Mormons 
of  Zenos,  or  Mesa  City,  one  of  the  towns  in  this  valley,  in 
the  construction  of  their  own  irrigating  system,  and  they 
say  that,  at  a  single  point  where  the  old  canal  had  been  cut 
through  a  bed  of  hard,  natural  cement,  it  saved  them  an 
expense  of  between  $10,000  and  $20,000. 

The  irrigating  systems  furnish  another  strong  argument 
in  favor  of  a  dense  population,  by  reason  of  the  great  econ 
omy  of  water  that  was  practised,  and  consequently  the 
large  area  of  land  that  was  brought  under  cultivation.  The 
ancient  people  were  content  with  a  fall  of  but  one  foot  to 
the  mile,  whereas  the  fall  thought  necessary  by  the  white 
inhabitants  of  to-day  is  twice  as  great  —  an  extravagance 
which  must  be  remedied  in  time  with  the  growth  of  pop 
ulation  and  the  increased  demand  for  land.  The  primi- 
itive  inhabitants,  therefore,  carried  their  irrigation  to  much 
higher  levels  than  is  feasible  under  the  modern  methods. 
But  even  thus  it  appears  that  the  supply  from  the  river 
did  not  wholly  meet  the  needs  of  the  ancient  inhabitants, 
for  they  still  further  husbanded  water  by  storing  up  the 
rainfall  from  the  neighboring  mountains  as  it  flowed  down 
from  the  ravines  in  the  gullies,  or  arroyos,  worn  in  the 
ground.  They  thus  were  enabled  to  irrigate  additional 
tracts  of  land.  Sufficient  amounts  of  water  were  diverted 
from  these  arroyos  at  practical  points  and  led  into  large 
tanks  or  storage  basins,  generally  oval  in  form  and  made 


THE    OLD   NEW    WORLD..  21 

with  high  banks  of  earth,  lined  at  the  bottom  and  sides 
with  puddled  clay,  which  was  often  rendered  still  further 
proof  against  leakage  by  filling  the  basin  with  brush  and 
making  a  tire  that  baked  the  clay  into  terra-cotta. 

Another  feature  of  the  great  public  works  of  this  class 
was  but  recently  discovered  by  Mr.  Cashing.  It  is  still 
more  significant  of  vast  population  operating  cooperatively. 
The  unusual  rainfall  of  the  past  winter  has  caused  a  luxu 
riant  growth  of  small  flowering  plants  upon  the  plains  sur 
rounding  Los  Muertos  and  other  ancient  cities  of  the 
southern  Salado  system.  Mr.  Gushing  observed,  how 
ever,  that  while  this  growth  is  ahvays  most  luxuriant  where 
ancient  buildings  have  stood,  it  is  absent  along  the  inner 
borders  of  the  banks  of  Avhat  were  once  extensive  irrigat 
ing  canals,  whose  lines  could  previously  be  traced  no  far 
ther,  so  obliterated  had  they  become  in  the  course  of  time. 
Following  out  one  of  the  canals  of  Los  Muertos  by  this 
means,  he  found  that  it  led  off  to  the  southwest  some  three 
miles  farther  than  it  had  been  explored,  terminating  in  an 
enormous  reprexo,  or  storage  reservoir,  irregular  in  out 
line,  something  like  a  mile  in  length  and  averaging  nearly 
half  a  mile  in  width.  Apparently,  advantage  had  been  taken 
of  a  natural  depression  for  the  creation  of  this  reservoir. 
Considering  that  its  banks  were  built  of  earth  excavated 
by  stone  implements  and  transported  in  baskets,  it  is  evi 
dent  that  an  army  of  laborers  must  have  been  required  for 
its  construction.  The  reservoir  was  evidently  designed  to 
store  the  surplus  water  from  the  canals,  and  it  is  not 
improbable  that  one  of  its  purposes  was  to  enable  the 
canals,  without  waste  of  water,  to  be  run  bank-full,  for 
the  sake  of  the  navigation,  which  naturally  would  have 
existed  under  the  need  of  transporting  building  and  other 
heavy  material  from  the  river  and  crops  from  the  fields  to 
the  towns,  and  with  the  facilities  offered  by  water-ways 


22  THE    OLD   NEW   WORLD. 

of  such  magnitude.  It  seems  likely  that  the  craft  used  in 
these  canals  were  rafts  of  bundles  of  reeds,  since  enor 
mous  quantities  of  reeds  from  the  river  were  used  for  roof 
ing  and  other  constructive  purposes,  and  floating  them 
down  the  canals  would  suggest  their  availability  for  trans 
portation  purposes.  Thus,  under  such  conditions  of  irri 
gation,  in  a  timberless  region,  probably  originated  the  balsa 
or  raft  of  reeds,  universal  among  the  Peruvian  aborigines 
and  in  the  Gulf  of  California. 

These  ancient  canals  may  often,  or  almost  always,  be 
traced  by  the  large  and  small,  black  river  pebbles  or  cob 
ble  stones  that  are  found  in  profusion  on  their  banks,  when 
not  covered,  together  with  the  worn-out  digging  imple 
ments  of  stone.  The  reason  for  the  existence  of  these 
river  stones  in  such  places  is  to  be  found  in  one  of  the 
many  peculiar  beliefs  held  by  primitive  man  in  the  taking 
of  appearances  for  realities.  Just  as  they  are  sometimes 
found  to  hold  that  the  motion  of  the  trees  causes  the  wind, 
instead  of  the  wind  moving  the  trees,  and  that  the  butter 
flies  bring  the  summer,  rather  than  the  summer  the  but 
terflies,  so,  as  they  see  the  apparent  motion  of  pebbles  in 
flowing  water,  they  hold  that  the  water  is  urged  along  by 
the  pebbles.  Therefore,  they  placed  the  pebbles  along 
the  banks  of  the  canals,  particularly  in  places  where  there 
was  danger  of  breaking,  under  the  belief  that  the  stones, 
or  "water-tamers"  as  Mr.  Gushing  calls  them,  would  ex 
ert  their  influence  in  repelling  the  water  as  it  leaped  up 
against  the  banks,  and  urge  it  along  in  its  proper  course 
down  the  stream.  At  the  entrance  to  their  reservoirs  and 
all  around  the  great  reservoir  above  described,  little  heaps 
of  these  river-stones  are  to  be  found,  put  there  to  show 
the  water  the  way  out  of  the  canal  into  the  places  where 
it  is  wanted  to  go.  The  Zum's  of  to-day  hold  this  belief, 
and  the  existence  of  the  "  water-tamers"  among  the  ves- 


THE    OLD   NEW   WORLD.  23 

tiges  of  these  people  shows  that  the  belief  was  handed 
down  from  very  ancient  times. 

The  study  of  the  methods  of  irrigation  and  agriculture 
pursued  by  the  primitive  races  of  the  Southwest  is  highly 
interesting  and  instructive.  The  subject  has  been  followed 
closely  by  Mr.  dishing  for  several  years,  and  the  results 
of  his  investigations  thereof  will,  when  made  public,  have 
not  only  scientific,  but  also  a  genuine  practical  value  in  in 
dicating  improved  methods  for  bringing  large  tracts  under 
cultivation,  and  showing  that,  with  all  our  boasted  nine 
teenth  century  civilization,  the  modern  man  can  profitably 
go  to  school  to  the  occupant  of  the  soil  in  an  age  when  they 
used  hoes  of  stone  and  planting  sticks,  instead  of  steel 
ploughs,  seed-drills,  cultivators  and  harvesters. 

Of  late  years  it  has  been  a  favorite  theory  among  eth 
nologists  to  hold  that  there  never  was  a  large  aboriginal 
population  in  America,  and  that  the  enormous  number  of 
ruins  found  here  in  the  Southwest  is  to  be  accounted  for 
by  successive  occupations  of  a  small  number  of  inhabitants. 
The  ancient  history  of  the  Old  World,  however,  shows  that 
the  population  of  fertile  portions  of  desert  regions  was 
compact  and  dense ;  the  valleys  of  the  Euphrates  and  of 
the  Nile  —  the  former  as  desolate  and  waste  to-day  as  our 
own  Southwest  —  sustaining  enormous  populations  in  an 
cient  times.  Similar  natural  conditions  exist  here,  and 
what  was  there  to  prevent  dense  populations  in  these  val 
leys?  Then,  too,  u  successive  occupation  by  migrations 
of  small  populations,  building  city  after  city,  pueblo  after 
pueblo,  of  those  whose  ruins  exist  to-day,  would  have  ne 
cessitated  a  period  of  time  so  great,  even  giving  but  a  few 
generations  of  habitancy  to  each  place,  as  to  confer  upon 
many  of  these  ruins  an  antiquity  so  vast  as  to  be  beyond 
the  bounds  of  probability  and  the  lasting  qualities  of  the 
materials  employed  in  constructing  them. 


24  THE    OLD    NEW    WORLD. 

It  is  certain,  however,  that  some  of  these  ruins  do  pos 
sess  a  very  considerable  antiquity,  while  on  the  other  hand 
Mr.  Bandelier's  recent  researches  would  seem  to  show  that 
cities  of  the  general  character  of  Los  Muertos  —  with  the 
feature,  that  is,  of  the  central  temple  or  citadel  —  were  in 
existence,  and  inhabited  when  the  first  Spaniards  invaded 
the  land.  At  least  there  were  people  dwelling  about  such 
places,  though  perhaps  only  as  the  Pi  ma  Indians  dwell 
about  these  ruins  to-day.  On  the  other  hand,  then,  the 
theory  of  successive  occupations  holds  good,  with  the  qual 
ification  of  large  populations.  It  is  seen  that  the  institu 
tions  of  this  people  required  a  contemporaneous  inhabitance 
of  an  entire  group  of  their  towns,  but  that  inhabitance  was 
subject  to  termination  through  a  regard  for  a  peculiar  article 
of  faith,  which  must  have  existed  with  them  from  a  very 
remote  period  in  their  past,  and  which  must  have  been  a 
controlling  motive  in  the  migrations  which  dispersed  them 
over  such  wide  areas  of  the  continent. 

This  was  a  belief  in  the  necessity  of  maintaining  their 
abiding  place  at  the  centre  of  the  world.  Should  the  sta 
bility  of  the  natural  conditions  of  the  locality  inhabited  by 
such  a  people  be  undermined  through  the  occurrence  of  dis 
turbing  phenomena,  and  should  religious  ceremonials  and 
sacrifices  be  unavailing  in  persuading  the  gods  to  cause  a 
cessation  of  such  phenomena,  then  the  place  would  be  aban 
doned  with  all  the  belongings  of  the  people,  and  however 
desirable  the  region  might  be  for  residence,  however  rich 
the  soil,  a  taboo  would  be  laid  upon  the  towns  and  the  fields, 
and  no  one  of  that  race  might  longer  dwell  there  or  till  the 
soil.  A  removal  to  a  short  distance,  no  farther  away  than 
a  neighboring  valley,  for  instance,  would  be  enough  to  com 
ply  with  the  self-imposed  edict,  and  there  the  people  might 
live  even  for  centuries,  perhaps,  about  a  stable  earth-cen 
tre,  rejoicing  in  the  favor  of  the  gods. 


THE    OLD   NEW    WORLD. 


25 


Earthquakes  were  one  of  the  main  causes  of  the  insta 
bility  of  the  "  centre  of  the  world,"  and  it  was  evidently 
that  which  occasioned  the  abandonment  of  the  group  which 
has  been  the  scene  of  the  investigations  of  the  Hemenway 
expedition  for  the  past  year.  Mr.  Gushing  first  came  to  this 
conclusion  through  finding  the  household  utensils  left  in 

O  O 

their  regular  places,  unbroken  and  undisturbed,  just  as 
they  would  have  been  in  the  case  of  such  a  deliberate  aban 
donment  under  taboo.  That  earthquakes  were  the  cause 
was  shown  by  the  nature  of  the  sacrifices  which  he  also 


SKELETON  OF  MAN  CRUSHED  BY  WALL  PROBABLY  OVERTHROWN  BY  EARTHQUAKE. 

found,  the  same  sacrifice  that  the  Zufiis  make  to-day  to  the 
gods  of  the  lower  regions,  the  divinities  who  produce  and 
control  the  phenomena  of  earthquakes,  whenever  a  great 
landslide  or  other  allied  disturbances  occur  in  their  coun 
try.  The  walls  of  many  of  the  houses  were  also  found  to 
be  overthrown  and  the  roofs  burned,  as  if  from  the  fires 
on  the  hearths,  and  now  and  then  the  skeletons  of  persons 
were  found  who  had  been  caught  and  crushed  beneath  the 
falls.  That  of  one  man  thus  excavated  appeared  to  have 
been  held  to  the  ground  alive  and  mangled,  as  if  struggling 
to  free  himself. 


26  THE    OLD    NEW    WORLD. 

When  at  San  Francisco  on  a  visit  last  autumn,  Mr. 
Gushing,  at  a  dinner  given  in  his  honor  by  members  of 
the  Academy  of  Sciences,  gave  some  account  of  his  work 
here.  President  Holden  of  the  University  of  California, 
and  Professor  Davidson,  in  charge  of  the  coast  survey  on 
the  Pacih'c,  were  particularly  interested  in  what  he  had 
to  say  concerning  the  earthquake  idea,  but  were  evidently 
disposed,  and  very  properly,  to  receive  his  theory  with 
scientific  caution,  the  subject  being  a  specialty  with  them 
both,  they  having  recently  returned  from  elaborate  inves 
tigations  of  the  great  earthquake  of  Sonora  at  its  centre 
of  disturbance  at  Bavispe,  that  had  occurred  the  preced 
ing  spring.  Therefore,  they  asked  Mr.  Gushing  if  he  had 
observed  in  which  way  the  walls  had  fallen.  "As  if 
hinged  at  the  bottom,  and,  opening  outward,  they  had  let 
the  roof  fall  inside,"  he  responded  ;  whereupon  they  as 
sured  him  that  his  theory  was  absolutely  correct,  for  an 
earthquake  was,  generally  speaking,  the  only  cause  which 
could  make  walls  and  roofs  fall  in  that  manner.  This  fact 
was  a  discovery  Avhich  had  been  made  by  them  during 
their  observations  at  Bavispe,  and  it  was  not  until  after 
this  dinner  to  Mr.  Gushing  that  their  report  announcing 
it  was  published. 

In  this  connection  a  singular  occurrence  deserves  not 
ing.  On  May  3,  1887,  two  gentlemen,  resident  in  Ari 
zona,  were  visiting  Camp  Hemenway,  and  were  dining 
with  Mr.  Gushing.  They  listened  with  interest  to  what 
he  told  them  about  the  ancient  earthquakes,  but  they  said 
that  they  could  not  accept  his  conclusions,  since  this  was 
a  region  free  from  such  disturbances.  Ever  since  the  first 
occupancy  of  the  territory  by  the  Spaniards,  even  such  a 
thing  as  an  earthquake  had  not  been  known.  They  had 
scarcely  finished  the  discussion  when  the  flag  on  a  staff 
over  a  neighboring  tent,  visible  from  the  table,  was  ob 
served  to  be  fluttering  violently,  although  not  a  breath  of 


THE    OLD   NEW   WORLD.  27 

air  was  stirring.  Then  a  strange  motion  of  the  earth  was 
felt  beneath  them,  accompanied  by  a  rumbling  noise. 
"  An  earthquake,  gentlemen,"  exclaimed  Mr.  Gushing, 
drawing  his  watch  and  timing  the  disturbance.  The  shock 
lasted  something  like  two  minutes;  it  was  the  great  So- 
nora  earthquake  whose  effect  was  felt  far  up  into  Arizona 
and  New  Mexico.  "  I  believe  you  now  !"  exclaimed  the 
guests,  and  one  of  them  looked  at  Mr.  Gushing  with  an 
expression  that  might  have  been  interpreted  to  proceed 
from  a  suspicion  that  their  host  was  a  wizard,  who  had 
conjured  up  the  earthquake  expressly  to  prove  himself 

right. 

VII. 

Speculation  naturally  arises  as  to  the  probable  age  of 
these  remains.  That  is,  of  course,  a  difficult  matter  to 
determine,  and,  in  the  present  stage  of  the  investigations, 
little  more  can  be  looked  for  than  an  approximate  mini 
mum  estimate.  The  culture  itself  represented  by  these  re 
mains  is  undoubtedly  very  old  upon  this  continent.  When 
the  Spaniards  first  came  into  this  country  the  most  notable 
edifice  in  the  Southwest  among  the  ancient  structures, 
Casa  Grande,  on  the  Gila,  was  even  then  a  ruin,  and  it  is, 
after  nearly  three  centuries  and  a  half,  still  standing.  Mr. 
Cushing's  researches  have  proven  the  Casa  Grande  to  be  a 
typical  central  temple  and  citadel  of  the  ancient  civilization, 
and  all  the  others  have  long  since  crumbled  into  mounds 
which  give  only  slight  indication  of  their  structural  char 
acter.  The  condition  of  the  articles  taken  from  the  ruins, 
particularly  of  the  pottery  and  the  skeletons  of  the  inhab 
itants,  is  such  as  to  betoken  an  age  of  between  1000  and 
2000  years  at  least. 

An  indication  of  the  possible  age  of  these  remains  may  be 
found  in  a  consideration  of  the  remarkable  archaeological 
discoveries  reported  from  the  Spanish  province  of  Aline- 

3 


28  THE    OLD    NEW   WORLD. 

ria,  made  last  summer,  so  shortly  after  these  of  Los  Muer- 
tos  as  to  be  almost  simultaneous.  The  account  of  those 
reads  like  a  repetition  of  the  story  of  these,  for  there, 
too,  it  was  a  stone-age  culture  whose  remains  have  been 
brought  to  light ;  that  people  also  practised  both  crema 
tion  and  house-burial,  and  there,  as  here,  the  house-buri 
als  often  included  both  husband  and  wife,  or  at  least  man 
and  woman,  side  by  side.  As  the  conditions  of  soil  and 
climate  in  southern  Spain  and  our  Southwest  are  remark 
ably  alike,  both  regions  being  dry,  hot  and  desert- like, 
and  conducive  to  the  long  preservation  of  buried  remains, 
it  is  quite  possible  for  relics  of  the  past  to  last  as  long  here 
as  there.  And  for  European  archaeologists  there  is  set  an 
interesting  task  in  estimatingthe  possible  period  of  a  stone- 
age  civilization  on  the  borders  of  the  Mediterranean,  in  a 
land  subject  to  the  influences  of  the  iron-age  Latin  cul 
tures  and  the  bronze-age  pre-Latin  people.  It  is  a  strik 
ing  fact,  that  at  nearly  the  same  time  there  should  be 
discovered  the  remains  ot  two  cultures  so  closely  resem 
bling  each  other  in  their  institutions,  both  in  new  Spain 
and  in  old. 

There  are  evidences  in  the  habitable  valleys  of  the  South 
west,  of  superimposed  occupations  of  the  same  sites,  as  in 
the  great  centres  of  population  in  the  old  world,  and  for 
the  same  reason  —  the  character  of  soil  and  other  natural 
conditions  being  such  as  to  invite  population  by  successive 
peoples.  And  as  race-history  almost  universally  shows 
that  more  or  less  of  the  blood  of  preceding  peoples  passes 
into  the  veins  of  successive  occupants  of  the  same  soil,  this 
seems  sufficient  to  account  for  traditions  among  the  latter 
pointing  to  descent  from  a  race  whose  culture  often  occu 
pied  a  higher  grade  than  their  own. 

Mr.  Cushing's  studies  have  led  him  to  characterize  this 
primitive  sedentary  culture,  for  convenience  of  designa- 


THE    OLD   NEW   WORLD.  29 

tion,  as  Shiwian,  or  Toltccan, —  not  as  Toltec,  not  as  rec 
ognizing  a  distinctive  Toltec  race  —  but  as  distinguishing 
a  culture,  though  not  necessarily  a  race,  as  the  parent  of 
the  Aztec,  Ma}ra,  Peruvian  and  other  civilizations  of  Mex 
ico,  Central  and  South  America.  Of  this  he  is  firmly  con 
vinced,  for  by  comparing  his  own  studies  here  with  the 
explorations  of  others  conducted  in  those  regions,  he  traces 
by  the  sure  and  gradual  lines  of  natural  development  the 
evolution  of  those  civilizations  from  this  root  and  stock, 
which  formed  an  ample  framework  for  the  elaborations 
there  supplied.  The  word  Shiwian  comes  from  Shiwi,  the 
name  by  which  the  Zunis  call  themselves.  As  the  Zunis 
furnish  conclusive  evidence,  both  in  their  language  and  in 
stitutions,  as  well  as  in  the  way  in  which  they  are  regarded 
by  neighboring  Pueblo  races  —  which  have  adopted  not 
only  their  religious  customs,  but  the  very  words  designat 
ing  those  customs  —  that  they,  of  all  existing  Pueblo  na 
tions,  preserve  in  the  greatest  purity  the  heritage  of  the 
ancient  sedentary  culture  of  the  new  world,  it  is  most  fit 
ting  that  they  should  give  the  generic  name  to  the  ethnic 
groundwork  upon  which  the  autochthonous  American  civi 
lizations  are  based. 

VIII. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  results  of  the  Hemenway  expe 
dition  are  of  importance,  not  so  much  through  what  has 
been  found,  as  by  what  has  been  found  out  in  the  progress 
of  the  work.  The  collections,  however,  are  remarkably 
rich  and  extensive  ;  their  great  and  paramount  value  rests 
upon  the  knowledge  of  their  collector,  and  thereby  the  cir 
cumstances  under  which  they  were  collected.  Without 
this,  they  would  be  simply  like  the  great  majority  of  other 
collections  —  merely  curiosities,  or  museum  bric-a-brac. 
The  collections  of  the  Hemenway  expedition,  however, 
will  rank  among  the  few  that  may  be  said  to  have  a  soul ; 


30  THE    OLD    NEW    WORLD. 

that  is,  deriving  their  value  more  from  their  intelligently 
recorded  history  than  from  their  objective  interest,  great 
though  this  may  be.  One  of  the  other  notable  exceptions 
to  the  general  run  of  archaeological  collections  is  that  which 
Professor  Putnam  of  the  Peabody  Museum  at  Cambridge 
is  making  with  such  admirable  system  and  exactness  among 
the  ancient  aboriginal  earthworks  in  Ohio,  and  the  results 
of  Mr.  Cushing's  labors  here  cannot  fail  to  throw  much  light 
upon  the  meaning  of  what  has  there  been  found. 

All  the  facts  concerning  each  and  every  article  in  the 
collection  are  ascertained  and  noted  with  as  much  detail  as 
possible,  that  it  may  be  enabled  to  tell  its  story ;  for,  al 
though  that  story  may  be  veiled  in  mystery  at  the  time  of 
its  discovery,  there  is  no  telling  at  what  moment  some  other 
discovery  may  remove  the  veil  if  the  history  of  that  arti 
cle  is  carefully  preserved  for  reference.  This  has  occurred 
again  and  again  in  the  course  of  these  explorations,  and 
the  records  that  have  been  preserved  will  prove  invaluable 
aids  for  the  guidance  of  investigations.  And  the  fact  that 
may  prove  the  key  to  a  vexed  problem  is  not  unlikely  to 
be  a  seemingly  unimportant  detail.  Therefore,  all  objects 
are  carefully  labelled  and  catalogued,  and  in  the  catalogue 
all  the  circumstances  concerning  their  finding  are  noted. 
This  record  is  also  checked  and  amplified  by  the  daily  re 
port  of  the  director,  written  carefully  by  Mr.  Gushing, 
giving  the  history  of  each  day's  work.  So  far  as  practi 
cable,  photographs  are  made  of  the  excavations  and  the  ob 
jects  found ;  plans  are  also  made  of  the  buildings  whose 
ruins  are  excavated,  and  these  are  shown  collectively  in 
maps  of  the  localities. 

The  importance  of  having  archaeological  work  proceed 
under  the  direction  of  a  man  thoroughly  conversant  with 
the  institutions  and  characteristics  of  the  race,  whose  re 
mains  are  under  investigation,  is  shown  by  the  knowledge 


THE    OLD    NEW    WORLD. 


31 


brought  to  the  task  by  Mr.  Gushing.  One  not  familiar 
with  Indian  life  and  methods  of  thought  would,  in  a  field 
like  this,  be  fumbling  blindly  in  a  labyrinth.  The  knowl 
edge  of  the  motives  that  would  actuate  primitive  man  un 
der  given  circumstances  tell  him  why  certain  objects  are 
placed  in  certain  positions  and  relations  as  plainly  as  if  he 


SKELETON  OF  MAIDEN  SACRIFICKD  TO  PREVENT  EARTHQUAKES. 

had  seen  them  put  there  himself.  For  instance,  he  finds 
a  skeleton  buried  with  adornments  that  he  recognizes  as 
belonging  to  the  paraphernalia  of  a  certain  priesthood 
that  he  knows  among  the  Zunis,  and  held  sacred  to  that 
purpose,  while  on  the  facial  bones  of  the  skull  is  found  the 
dry,  colored  dust  of  a  pigment  with  which  the  members  of 
that  priesthood  paint  their  faces  during  certain  ceremonials 


32  THE    OLD    NEW    WORLD. 

of  the  order.  Mr.  Cashing  therefore  learns,  by  this  ob 
servation,  that  the  same  priesthood  existed  centuries  ago 
among  this  people,  and  that  the  remains  of  one  of  its  priests 
are  before  him.  Again,  by  certain  articles  found  about  the 
skeleton  of  a  female,  he  recognizes  that  here  was  an  Indian 
Iphigenia  —  the  articles  are  sacrifices  to  the  gods  of  the 
lower  regions,  and  the  maiden  was  probably  the  best-loved 
child  of  a  priest,  slain  to  gain  the  favor  of  the  deities  and 
avert  the  earthquake  dangers.  So,  also,  from  his  knowl 
edge  of  the  Zimi  conceptions  of  the  regions  in  space  ;  of 
the  tendency  of  that  race,  for  the  sake  of  protection  as  well 
as  agriculture,  to  locate  its  towns  and  camps  in  certain 
relations  to  one  another  and  generally  in  the  midst  of  plains, 
then  to  distribute  around  about  these  homes  their  cave- 
sacrifices  and  shrines  according  to  certain  local  conditions 
and  to  their  ideas  of  the  regions  of  the  world,  he  is  able  to 
enter  a  valley-plain  in  the  Southwest  before  unknown  to 
him,  and  find  there  the  cities  of  the  ancient  occupants  — 
even  though  these  be  buried,  with  scarcely  a  trace  on  the 
surface.  Having  thus  found  these  towns,  he  is  then  able, 
by  looking  at  the  mountains  with  Zuni  eyes  —  "  dividing 
the  horizon  mythologically  " — thus  to  choose,  as  would  a 
priest  of  the  old  Shiwian  cultures,  the  places  of  sacrifice  ; 
and  when,  according  to  this  choice,  he  rides  off  to  these 
appropriate  places,  he  finds,  readily  and  almost  invariably, 
the  round  and  square  god-houses,  the  ritualistic  petro- 
graphs,  and  even  the  cave-shrines  placed  there  centuries 
ago,  with  their  rich  accumulations  of  textile,  feather  and 
wood  paraphernalia  in  the  shape  of  vessels,  symbolic  weap 
ons,  etc.,  preserved  as  thoroughly  as  if  they  had  been  kept 
in  the  cases  of  a  museum. 

The  collections  include  pottery,  stone  implements,  tur 
quoise  and  other  stones  held  in  esteem  in  the  ancient  days, 
shells  and  shell  ornaments,  and  human  and  animal  remains. 


THE    OLD   NEW   WOLRD. 


33 


So  great  is  the  age  of  the  ruins  that  but  slight  remains  of 
textile  fabrics  have  been  found  —  two  or  three  precious 
scraps  —  and  pieces  of  wood  and  other  vegetable  remains 
are  also  very  scarce  for  the  same  reason.  Those  that  have 
been  found  are  in  a  charred  condition,  for  the  greater  part, 
and  it  is  this  charring  which  has  preserved  them,  enabling 
the  burned  roofs,  for  instance,  to  tell  the  tale  of  the  earth 
quakes. 

The  pottery  is  found,  for  the  greater  part,  in  houses, 


EXCAVATED  HOUSE-RUINS. 

buried  beneath  the  floors  as  food  and  drink  vessels  for  the 
dead  with  whose  skeletons  they  were  found,  or  in  use  as 
domestic  utensils  ;  or  discovered  buried  at  the  bases  of  the 
pyral  mounds,  containing  the  cremated  remains.  It  makes 
a  rich  collection  ;  one  of  the  finest  in  the  world,  when  its 
typical  character  and  the  circumstances  of  its  discovery 
are  taken  into  account.  In  general  characteristics  it  is  the 
same  as  that  of  the  ceramic  art  of  the  Southwest,  both  an 
cient  and  modern,  and  many  of  the  designs  are  identical 


34  THE    OLD    NEW    WORLD. 

with  those  made  by  the  Zunis  of  to-day,  some  types  not  va 
rying  in  a  single  detail,  illustrating  the  power  of  tradition  in 
the  conservation  of  design  amonga  primitive  people.  One  of 
the  most  important  things  is  the  discovery  here  of  nearly 
all  the  types  needed  to  complete  the  chain  of  development 
in  the  evolution  of  pottery-forms  and  designs  out  of  bas 
ketry,  traced  with  scientific  exactness  by  Mr.  Gushing  in 
his  paper  on  pueblo  pottery,  contributed  to  the  fourth  an 
nual  report  of  the  Bureau  of  Ethnology,  recently  pub 
lished. 

The  collection  of  stone  axes  and  other  tools  is  already 
unquestionably  one  of  the  finest  in  the  world,  both  in  va 
riety  of  form  and  in  nicety  of  finish,  as  well  as  in  number 
of  specimens.  The  articles  of  personal  adornment  show 
that  the  race  possessed  considerable  artistic  skill  in  that 
direction,  as  well  as  in  pottery.  Sea-shells  were  the  fa 
vorite  material  for  the  manufacture  of  these,  and  much  of 
the  shell  work  shows  traces  of  having  been  used  as  a  base 
for  inlaying.  Fortunately  a  very  precious  example,  one 
of  the  gems  of  the  collection,  tells  just  how  this  inlaying 
was  done.  The  article  is  a  figure  of  a  frog  made  by  coat 
ing  the  back  of  a  shell  with  an  excellent  kind  of  black  ce 
ment,  manufactured  from  the  gum  deposited  upon  the 
leaves  and  twigs  of  the  hediondillo,  or  grease-wood,  by  a 
species  of  lac-insect.  In  this  gum  were  embedded  little 
mosaic  fragments  of  various  shades  of  turquoise  and  of 
red  shells,  and  then  rubbed  down  smooth.  It  makes  a 
realistic  figure,  as  well  as  a  very  beautiful  article  of  prim 
itive  jewelry.  Probably  no  public  collection  in  the  world 
has  any  example  of  this  peculiar  inlaid  work,  a  few  articles 
of  which  are  held  in  priceless  esteem  by  esoteric  orders 
among  the  Zunis  and  other  pueblo  tribes.  A  unique  ex 
ample  of  the  art  of  this  ancient  people  was  found  the  other 
day  while  excavating  the  ruins  of  an  interesting  temple, 


THE    OLD    NEW    WORLD.  35 

in  the  shape  of  the  only  specimen  of  their  basket-work 
thus  far  encountered.  It  was  protected  by  the  charring  of 
the  contents,  a  kind  of  marmalade  of  pitahaya  fruit,  as  it 
lay  in  the  storeroom  of  the  temple,  but  unfortunately  it 
was  badly  broken  by  the  shovel  of  a  workman  before 
it  was  observed.  The  fragments  have  a  great  scientific 
value,  however,  since  they  show  that  the  decorative  color 
ing  was  protected  by  a  kind  of  lacquering,  probably  also 
made  from  the  hediondillo  gum,  the  first  yet  discovered 
among  the  prehistoric  remains  of  this  country. 

The  anthropological  value  of  the  large  collection  of  hu 
man  skeletons  —  nearly  200  having  thus  far  been  found — 
may  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  the  ancient  pueblo  skele 
tons  have  been  extremely  rare  and  correspondingly  cov 
eted  heretofore,  but  three  or  four  skulls  having  been  found 
previous  to  the  work  of  the  Hemenway  expedition.  The 
collection  of  skeletons  has  particular  worth,  from  the  ex 
cavation  and  preservation  of  the  remains  having  been 
personally  superintended  by  two  such  eminent  scientists 
as  Drs.  Wortman  and  ten  Kate,  so  that  every  possible 
bone  has  been  secured.  This  circumstance  has,  indeed, 
enabled  those  gentlemen  to  make  a  discovery  of  great  im 
portance,  the  nature  of  which,  however,  it  would  be  un 
becoming  in  me  to  indicate  before  its  announcement  in 
proper  scientific  form  by  its  discoveries.  The  doctors 
also  declare  that  the  number  of  anomalies  they  have  en 
countered  make  it  the  most  interesting  collection  of  skel 
etons  they  have  ever  examined. 

IX. 

As  carrying  out  the  work  begun  by  Mr.  Gushing  in 
Zuni  and  confirming  the  conclusions  reached  there,  the 
following  list,  prepared  from  data  furnished  by  his  notes, 
will  show  the  nature  of  some  of  the  chief  results  attained 


36  THE    OLD   NEW    WORLD. 

by  the  Hemenwaj  expedition  in  but   little  more  than  a 
year  : 

1.  The  finding  of  extensive  groups  of  petrographs,  or 
rock-inscriptions,    existing    throughout    central    Arizona 
from   Prescott  to  the  Salado  and  Gila  valleys  identical 
even  to  detail  with  the  Zufii  groups,  and  thus  establishing 
that  their  purpose  was,  like  that  of  the  latter,  ritualistic, 
and  to  be  interpreted,  when  of  Pueblo  origin,  mythologi- 
cally,  and  not  as  records  of  events. 

2.  That  the  class  of  ruins  typified  by  the  Casa  Grande 
remains  is  universal  in  the  valleys  of  the  Gila  and  Salado 
and  neighboring  watercourses,  and  equally  so  in  lines  ex 
tending  southward  far  into  Mexico.     The  chief  character 
istics  of  this  type  are  demonstrated  to  be  (1)  the  use  by 
their  constructors  not  only  of  stone  and  of  hand-made 
adobe,  or  sun-dried  brick,  but  also  in  the  building  of  their 
main  earthen  walls  by  forming  them  within  a  framework 
of  slight  timber  and  wattled  cane,  thus  characterizing  their 
architecture  as  derived,  like  their  pottery,  from  original 
basketry  types — in  this  case,  of  hut  structures;    (2)   the 
occurrence  of  enormous  central  citadel  or  temple  buildings 
in  the  midst  of  (3)  groups  of  dwellings  distributed  with 
in  walled  enclosures,  and  (4)  in  their  vicinity  clusters  of 
houses  or  huts  of  an  inferior  type,  unenclosed,  inhabited 
by  an  ultra-mural  outcast,  or  laboring  class ;  that  (.5)  in 
shape  these  entire  groups  of  structures  or  cities  invari 
ably  conform  to  the  lines  of  extension  of  the  main  irri 
gating  canals,  thus  being  of  great  length  relative  to  their 
width;   (6)  that  these  ancient  canal  cities  are  universally 
located  along  the  outside  limits  (that  is,  farthest  from  the 
river)  of  the  irrigation  tracts  lying  between  the  canals  and 
the  river;  (7)  that  these  cities  invariably  occur  in  groups, 
contemporaneously  occupied,  of  six  or  seven,  thus  exactly 
corresponding  to  the  mythico-sociologic  division  of  the 


THE    OLD    NEW    WORLD.  37 

"seven  cities  of  Cibola"  ®r  ancient  Zuni,  and  the  still  pre 
served  division  into  seven  corresponding  parts  of  the  one 
modern  Zimi  pueblo;  (8)  of  the  universal  prevalence 
among  their  inhabitants  of  the  significant  dual  system  of 
burial  of  the  higher  social  and  sacerdotal  classes  by  inter 
ment  beneath  the  floors  of  the  houses  wherein  they  dwelt 
and  their  relatives  continued  to  dwell,  and  in  gentile  cem 
eteries  surrounding  the  bases  of  sacrificial  mounds  — 
designated  by  Mr.  Gushing,  in  consequence  of  their  use, 
as  "pyral  mounds" — of  the  ordinary  classes,  whether  in- 
tra-  or  ultra-mural. 

3.  The  occurrences,  as  in  Zuni,  throughout  all  these 
pueblos,  associated  with  their  appropriate  structures  of  (1, 
in  temples),  tribal;  (2,  hi  urban  houses  or  quarters),  of 
clan,  or  gentile:  (3,  in  dwelling  rooms  and  house  sepul 
chres)  of  family;  (3,  in  pyral  sacrifices)  of  individual, 
amulets  or  fetiches,  consisting  of  concretionary  stones  of 
high  natural  colors  and  peculiar  shapes,  and  held  sacred 
because  derived  from  the  "  source  of  life  "  in  the  sea,  lakes 
and  rivers.  In  correspondence  with  this  institution  there 
occurs  a  decorative  symbolism  on  pottery  identical  with 
that  of  Zuni. 

Conforming  with  the  grouping  of  their  cities,  the  an 
cient  inhabitants  practised  an  elaborate  and  thorough  sys 
tem  of  cooperative  irrigation,  superior,  in  some  respects, 
to  that  of  the  present  white  inhabitants ;  in  addition  to 
which  they  practised  an  elaborate  and  even  more  ingenious 
system  of  rain  irrigation. 

5.  That  from  the  form  of  their  canals  and  distribution 
of  their  canal-systems,  as  well  as  the  evidences,  direct  and 
indirect,  of  the  transportation  of  bundles  of  reeds  and  canes, 
they  seem  to  have  had  a  crude,  yet  effective,  system  of 
canal  navigation. 

6.  That,  from  the  evidences  furnished  by  (1)  the  tra- 


38  THE    OLD   NEW   WORLD. 

ditions  of  the  Zuiiis,  (2)  stray  allusions  in  old  Spanish  nar 
ratives,  (3)  petrographic  herder-rituals,  these  people  had 
domesticated  animals,  notably  the  turkey,  and  probably 
also  the  rabbit  and  a  variety  of  the  auchenia  or  llama,  as 
shown  by  (4)  the  petrographic  inscriptions  observed  by 
Mr.  Gushing  in  western  New  Mexico  and  central  and  south 
ern  Arizona,  and  the  repeated  finding  of  sacrifices  for  herd- 
increase  or  reproduction,  of  actual  figurines  strikingly 
resembling  the  last  mentioned  animals. 

7.  The  practice  of  an  entirely  indigenous  metallurgic 
art,  evidencing  a  crude  knowledge  of  the  reduction  of  ores 
by  smelting,  working  of  the  resulting  metals  by  beating  or 
repousse  treatment  with  stone  implements,  and  fusing  or 
brazing  with  terra-cotta  and  cane  blowpipes,  showing  the 
beginning  of  the  extremely  interesting  transition,  within 
and  from  the  stone  age  toward  the  metal  age,  in  this,  the 
working  of  the  softer  metals  chiefly  for  ornamental  purposes 
solely  with  stone-age  appliances ;  the  utilization  of  metal 
for  implements  being  considered  as  marking  the  beginning 
of  the  metal  age. 

8.  The  establishment,  by  Dr.  ten  Kate,  of  the  types  of 
crania  belonging  to  the  remains  of  these  people,  as  being 
of  the  peculiar  brachy cephalic  pueblo,  older  Mexican  and 
Peruvian  type,  and  also  the  discovery,  by  Drs.  Wortman 
and  ten  Kate,  of  new  and  strongly  distinctive  anatomical 
features  that  promise  to  be  of  extreme  value  in  racial  de 
termination. 

These,  which  are  only  the  chief  among  numerous  inter 
esting  discoveries  and  observations,  all  evidence,  as  above 
narrated,  a  continuous  desert  culture,  the  direction  of  whose 
growth  and  elaboration  lay  from  north,  southward,  finding 
its  most  immediate  course  and  its  clearest  and  most  per 
fect  development  and  exemplification  at  its  extreme  limit, 
in  Peru,  especially  among  the  Chimu  and  other  Yunga  re- 


THE    OLD    NEW    WORLD.  39 

mains —  its  most  primitive  and  representative  living  ex 
ample  in  the  little  tribe  of  Zimi,  to-day,  though  to  a  greater 
or  less  extent  still  traceable  as  an  absorbed  element  among 
nearly  all  the  tribes  of  the  Southwest. 

Beside  the  strictly  scientific  fruits,  and  the  fact  that 
probably  there  is  no  really  scientific  achievement  without 
a  thoroughly  practical  aspect  in  the  shape  of  benefits  to 
human  progress  — although  they  may  not  directly  appear — 
the  Hemenway  expedition  has  accomplished  directly  "prac 
tical  "  results  which  may  be  turned  to  great  economic  ac 
count  in  the  very  region  where  its  researches  are  prosecuted. 
In  investigating  the  remains  of  the  primal  desert  culture 
of  our  continent  —  and  Mr.  Gushing  holds  that,  from  the 
necessities  of  environment,  the  origin  of  all  great  civiliza 
tions  is  to  be  sought  in  the  desert  —  it  is  bringing  to  life 
the  facts  concerning  a  people  who  had  learned  all  that  the 
desert  had  to  teach  them,  or  at  least  all  that  it  was  need 
ful  for  them  to  know.  And  the  desert-craft  of  the  abori 
gines  is  not  to  be  despised.  A  single  example  may  suffice. 
When  Mr.  Cushin^'s  researches  concerning  their  methods 

O  ~ 

of  irrigation  are  made  public,  it  will  be  seen  that,  with 
their  economy  of  water  and  their  knowledge  how  to  utilize 
and  husband  the  rainfall  for  irrigation  through  simple  and 
effective  means  of  storage,  in  addition  to  the  water  brought 
in  canals  from  the  streams,  the  facts  acquired  by  them 
through  ages  of  experience  can  be  adapted  to  our  modern 
resources,  to  the  great  advantage  of  the  multitudes  who 
are  now  repopulating  these  valleys.  And  this  knowledge 
will  be  of  enormous  benefit  to  the  Southwest,  vastly  in 
creasing  its  population,  and  enabling  the  cultivation  of  ex 
tensive  tracts  that  are  still  regarded  as  hopelessly  desert, 

X. 

All  that   promotes  an  understanding  of  man  by  men 


40  THE    OLD    NEW    WORLD. 

strengthens  the  ties  of  sympathy  that  are  destined  to  over 
come,  in  the  course  of  the  ages,  the  mutual  prejudices  of 
individuals  and  the  mutual  hatreds  of  races.  These  ties 
will  form  the  bonds  of  universal  brotherhood,  the  attain 
ment  of  which  has  been  the  aim  of  the  masters  of  life,  who 
have  towered  like  mountain  peaks  above  the  levels  of  their 
kind,  and,  in  the  calm,  clear  air  that  lies  beyond  the  tuiv 
moil  of  the  clouded  currents  of  passion  and  of  strife  for 
individual  advantage,  have  seen  that  human  happiness  can 
have  no  lasting  home  where  it  is  not  plainly  recognized 
that  only  that  which  is  for  the  good  of  all  men  is  for  the 
good  of  any  man.  Dislike  is  dispelled  by  knowledge  ;  and 
ethnology,  the  science  of  mankind,  is,  therefore,  essentially 
the  most  philanthropical,  as  well  as  the  greatest,  of  the 
sciences. 

To  understand  any  subject  we  must  first  go  to  its  be 
ginnings  and  work  from  the  foundation  upward.  In  trac 
ing  the  history  of  the  human  race  and  the  development  of 
the  human  mind  back  through  the  long  volumes  of  Nature's 
book,  that,  with  their  baffling  pages  of  strange  though 
plainly  inscribed  records  precede  our  few  chapters  told 
in  familiar  speech  called  history,  we  must  first  go  to  prim 
itive  man  and  study  the  race  in  its  childhood  if  we  would 
understand  the  true  meaning  of  that  blossoming  of  human 
ity  known  as  modern  civilization.  In  making  this  work 
its  task  the  Hemenway  expedition  is  rendering  an  invalu 
able  service,  and  the  results  already  reached  give  promise 
of  grander  results  to  follow,  as  the  strands  now  grasped 
in  the  light  of  discoveries  made  are  brought  together  to 
form  the  line  that  shall  lead  far  back  among  the  vanished 
peoples  of  the  very  old  "  new  world." 

Written  at   Camp  Hemenway,  near  Tempe,  Arizona, 
April  4,  1888. 


MAR  4    1970;  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

ANTHROPOLOGY  LIBRARY 

This  publication  is  due  on  the  LAST  DATE 
and  HOUR  stamped  below. 

0£C  18  1974 
JUN  16  197B 


IDL  23  2002 


RB  17A-7m-2,'69 
(J6056slO)4188 — A-32 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


